One of the things I most struggle with is the fear of making mistakes.
It’s that yearning to do something really well. To get it right, and to get it right the first time. To want my first draft to be my final draft.
Can you relate?
I have conversations day in and day out with clients, colleagues, and friends about how deeply it is important to us to operate excellently… and the shadow side of that is perfectionism.
Although I’ve done loads of internal work around this, the most effective way I’ve been able to untangle this pattern from my system has been through dance.
I’ve been learning salsa and bachata for two years now, and I joked the other day with a group of colleagues that dance has taught me more about personal development than most workshops and seminars have. This is because it’s an actual chance to practice and embody the inner work.
The moment my dance teacher rewired me
One of my dance teachers is a sweet, lighthearted guy who has a way of bringing me back to my body and making me laugh while I’m learning.
The other day, I made a little mistake and stepped on his foot.
His response GOT me:
“Don’t worry about the mistake. Just focus on the solution.”
It was such a passing thing for him to say, but in that moment, I felt that code land. Stop putting my focus on the mistake. Just get right into the solution.
A few weeks later, I asked a fellow male dancer what makes a woman fun to dance with. He said it has nothing to do with skill once you’re past the basics — the fun ones are the ones who, when they mess up, just tweak, adjust, and move on.
They find a solution. Same teaching, coming from someone who didn’t know my teacher. Coincidence, much? (I’ve written before about this same metaphor in Perfection Will Keep You in the Corner — Trust Will Get You on the Floor.)
How quickly can you get back to the step?
This incident reminded me that our success hinges less on the mistakes we avoid making, and more around our ability to respond to those mistakes in real time, course-correct, and pivot into the solution.
That it’s not about making the mistakes… It’s about who I am when I catch them. How I respond to them. Whether I take accountability and how quickly I move forward towards something better.
In other words… less energy fussing about how I stepped on someone’s foot, more energy redirected towards coming back into the flow of steps.
And how lovely would it be, to take this lesson back into entrepreneurship? Into our daily practice as we pursue our big dreams? Into being in relationship with a partner?
I’ve been sitting with this idea a LOT in the last year….
That at the end of the day, what matters the most is how you feel in the creative process.
If you’re making mistakes as you’re learning new things and you’re constantly feeling bad, or guilty, or shamed, or contracted as you’re making them… then you are navigating the creative process of your life in a contracted space. Which closes you off to flow, to life, and that’s no way to live!
(This is the same pattern I write about in “Oops, I Did It Again”: How to Stop Punishing Yourself for Repeating Habits You Thought You’d Outgrown — the self-punishment after the mistake is the bigger problem.)
What I share in the full transmission
In the audio training, I go deeper into the inquiry: what new skills am I actually learning right now, and where am I afraid to make mistakes? I walk through the difference between contraction and creative state in the body, and what it has taken for me to start trusting that the improv might actually work out better than what I was formally trained to do.
If you’re sitting on something you’ve been avoiding learning because you’re afraid to be a beginner… this is for you.
TAKEAWAY: It’s not about making the mistakes. It’s about who you are when you catch them.
WAYS TO WORK WITH ME
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